Hacker News Reader

Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

Atlas looks fantastic for starting a US company, and it makes sense that Stripe would start with US companies.

Are there other types of company in other countries that may be better fits for certain reasons? Are there countries/types that would work better for say, non profits, charities, or financial institutions? I wonder if Stripe is building or considering a more diverse range of options for Atlas.

View on HN

This is probably a somewhat cynical take, but Stripe Atlas' US only offering is a big contributor to international startup brain drain which is costing local economies significantly. When countries (such as within the EU, India or South America) invest so much in the education and development of young entrepreneurs, only for them to leave to the US for the allure of quick investment, all of their potential future value leaves with them. I understand there is a lot for these countries to do to improve investment conditions for high risk startups, but how can poorer South American countries (like those in the Stripe promo video linked) compete with the US in terms of the availability of capital? This is not solely Stripes fault, though in my opinion by promoting Delaware parent companies for international founders they contribute to the hindrance of the local tech economies of these countries.

I'd like to reiterate that this is a relatively uncharitable take, and would welcome alternate perspectives on this issue.

While some Atlas users are internationally mobile, the dominant use case for Delaware entities is to give you a convenient box the system knows how to interface with while you live and operate your business wherever you live and operate your business. This is true for foreign and U.S.-based owners of Delaware entities.

One of my favorite Atlas users, Meitre in South America, has this tagline on their site: "Proudly born in Uruguay. Made with love in California" Much of their business is in South America; they went on (after incorporation) to through YC, raised from A16Z, etc. I think their experience is a userful counter to the standard narrative about brain drains, because that business is very thoroughly South American and also a first-class participant in the SV ecosystem.

Anecdotally speaking, a lot of the Atlas companies I'm aware of which raised money raised it either primarily locally, a mix of local and Silicon Valley, or "extremely widely distributed."

Thanks for the response, it seems my initial take was indeed unbalanced and hadn't factored in the potential of geographically distributed raises which benefit the founders local territories whilst bringing the benefits of significant US capital.

While availability of capital is (in my experience) critical in the decision for South American startups to create a Delaware C Corp, another overlooked piece is the amount of bureaucratic hoops you’re forced to jump through elsewhere. Founders (again, my anecdotal experience) want to focus on building their business. The US system is far from perfect but it’s the most streamlined & has a clear path laid out for scaling. The US system is onerous at best but it’s one of the best relative to others.

Ultimately, if you make things harder for entrepreneurs, they will find an alternative. Atlas makes things easy & actively looks for more way to remove obstacles. It’s a no-brainer for people wanting to focus on building and not tax entity structure.

The whole system seems set up to funnel money and value one way. The most likely countermeasure will be ICOs

(I work at Stripe and have worked on Stripe Atlas.)

We're always on the lookout for more ways to support the growth of the Internet economy, and have been looking in detail at which entity types and "hubs" would unlock the most opportunity for our users and for people who we talk to. As always, we'll announce our work here when/if it is ready to be used.

Hi Patrick

My # one needs isn't related to Atlas per se (but I can see how all Atlas users need this), I love you're acquisition of TaxJar and release of Stripe Tax. But it only solves 1/2 the problem. I need an easy way to make tax payments to the appropriate regulator (e.g. Merchant of Record service). Hope that is in the works.

We hear you, and are hard at work on making taxes easier. Moving money around is very core to what we do, and money movements between companies and tax agencies are one of the largest funds flows for companies subject to that sort of regime, so you can make some very plausible assumptions about our level of interest in this area.

Have you started offering foreign owned LLC's again via Atlas? The last time I checked this wasn't possible sadly.

Hi Patrick

Me again. I posted my Atlas wish list here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27706864

Happy to email/talk 1:1 if you’d like to dive into this more.

Eu countries, especially the low tax ones each have benefits for different types of companies wrt to intellectual property law or finance. Ireland Malta cyprus estonia bulgaria Luxembourg have hundreds of companies that offer off the shelf company formation

Reply on news.ycombinator.com